Colma: when one sale is not a housing market benchmark

Colma’s latest single-family window contains one sale. The useful story is what the available evidence can support, and how its housing plan differs from a transaction-based price signal.

The most important number in Colma’s latest market snapshot is one: the number of single-family sales in the retained three-month window. Publishing that sale’s price as if it described a stable citywide market would create more confidence than the data warrants. Colma can still be a useful part of a home search, but the research has to start with individual housing options and clearly labeled gaps.

What sold, and how history compares

Observation window: June 1–August 31, 2026. Comparisons below use the same June–August season. Prices are nominal dollars.

Single-family homes: 1 recorded sale; median withheld because the sample is below ten sales or the price is unavailable.
2025 comparison: price change withheld because one or both periods lack at least ten sales and a usable price.
2021 comparison: price change withheld because one or both periods lack at least ten sales and a usable price.
Condos/co-ops: no usable current observation in the retained series. Missing is not zero.
2025 comparison: price change withheld because one or both periods lack at least ten sales and a usable price.
2021 comparison: price change withheld because one or both periods lack at least ten sales and a usable price.

The latest observation cannot support a typical-price headline, a price-growth ranking or an estimate of the discount to nearby cities. The matching 2025 and 2021 observations are unavailable in the retained series. Missing data does not mean zero sales or no housing. Likewise, there is no usable current condo observation. Extending the chart is useful for seeing whether other periods have more evidence, but averaging published medians would not recover the median of a combined set of sales.

What local plans establish

Colma’s adopted 2023–2031 Housing Element, retained by the state housing department, distinguishes Sterling Park single-family opportunities from El Camino Real multifamily development potential. Table H-46 lists 255 units of corridor development potential. Those are planning estimates in an adopted document, not evidence that 255 homes have been built, approved as individual projects, or offered for sale. Colma Housing Element, Table H-46 (PDF page 76).

The case worth testing

The practical value of the plan is to identify where the town expects housing choices could change. Existing single-family homes and potential corridor apartments may serve different buyers or renters. Our working hypothesis is that a buyer could find a suitable property here that a city-median ranking would overlook. Testing that hypothesis requires actual comparable transactions, ownership type, condition and location. It cannot be tested by substituting Daly City’s median for Colma’s missing observations.

The opposing case

The opposing case is limited choice: a property may look attractive on paper but have few truly comparable alternatives or resales. A future project may also add rental housing rather than the ownership product a buyer wants. Neither possibility proves Colma should be excluded; both explain why a seemingly precise city ranking would be misleading. A very thin resale sample also makes a single year of observed price change a weak measure of future liquidity.

What would change our view

The priority is a verified, deduplicated set of individual sales with clear boundaries and property characteristics. Until that exists, use nearby city histories for regional context and label the actual Colma comparison as unavailable. On development, retain project applications and completion records against the Housing Element’s opportunity sites. Evidence of completed, relevant housing would change the choice set; a planning capacity number by itself would not.

Explore the evidence

Open Colma’s interactive sales history or compare Colma with Daly City and South San Francisco. You can change home type, period and history range in the comparison.

Read the 17-city market report and the companion housing-plans report.

Sources and method

Sales source: Redfin Data Center download; metric definitions. These observations cover overlapping rolling three-month windows; this edition compares the same June–August season in different years. It does not sum adjacent windows or average their medians. Price-per-square-foot samples may contain fewer homes than the total sales count. The retained download was retrieved September 16, 2026 and labels its source update September 3, 2026.

This is desk research with official sources reviewed September 17, 2026. It includes no fieldwork, interviews, address-level valuation or validated price forecast. The original eight-city models retain their existing scope. Future updates should preserve this edition and identify changed evidence rather than rewrite its historical interpretation.